Invocation to the catalogue of ships.


Say, virgins, seated round the throne divine,
All-knowing goddesses! immortal nine!
Since earth's wide regions, heaven's unmeasured height,
And hell's abyss, hide nothing from your sight
(We, wretched mortals! lost in doubts below,
But guess by rumour, and but boast we know),
Oh! say what heroes, fired by thirst of fame,
Or urged by wrongs, to Troy's destruction came!
To count them all demands a thousand tongues,
A throat of brass and adamantine lungs.

Now virgin goddesses, immortal nine!
That round Olympus' heavenly summit shine,
Who see through heaven and earth, and hell profound,
And all things know, and all things can resound!
Relate what armies sought the Trojan land,
What nations followed, and what chiefs command;
(For doubtful fame distracts mankind below,
And nothing can we tell, and nothing know)
Without your aid, to count the unnumbered train,
A thousand mouths, a thousand tongues, were vain.


Book V. v. 1.